Batteries & Energy Storage
Berkeley Lab, CalCEF announce partnership
May 29, 2012 10:24 am | News | CommentsCalCEF, which creates institutions and investment vehicles for the clean energy economy, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announced a partnership to launch CalCharge, a consortium uniting California's emerging and established battery technology companies with critical academic and government resources.
Morgan Crucible, Boston-Power sign joint development agreement
May 24, 2012 3:30 am | News | CommentsThe Morgan Crucible Company plc announced the signing of a joint development agreement between its wholly owned subsidiary, MorganAM&T Inc., and Boston-Power Inc. to accelerate development and commercialization of MorganAM&T's advanced anode technologies based on metal-loaded carbon nanoparticles.
Web tool helps determine best energy storage options
May 11, 2012 4:06 am | News | CommentsSandia National Laboratories and the U.S. Department of Energy have released a new tool to help utilities, developers, and regulators identify the energy storage options that best meet their needs. Partnering with DNV KEMA, Sandia is releasing Energy Storage Select, or ES-Select, software under a public license to the company.
New nanostructure for batteries keeps going and going
May 10, 2012 8:00 am | News | CommentsFor more than a decade, scientists have tried to improve lithium-based batteries by replacing the graphite in one terminal with silicon, which can store 10 times more charge. But after just a few charge/discharge cycles, the silicon structure would crack and crumble, rendering the battery useless. Now a team led by materials scientist has found a solution: a cleverly designed double-walled nanostructure that lasts more than 6,000 cycles, far more than needed by electric vehicles or mobile electronics.
Battery-like enzyme gets extended storage capability
April 19, 2012 5:46 am | by Luciana Gravotta | News | CommentsWhile working with an enzyme found in bacteria that is crucial for capturing solar energy, researchers in Michigan have found they can adjust the time the battery-like enzyme can store energy. In nature, the enzyme recovers from a charge-separated state in seconds, but changing the enzyme’s shape has extended storage to several hours.
Storage innovation expands horizons of compressed air energy
April 13, 2012 2:58 am | by Matt Hodson, University News Service | News | CommentsSustainX, a grid-scale developer of energy storage solutions, is commercializing isothermal compressed air energy storage, which is typically accomplished using underground caverns. However, this new technology, licensed from the University of Minnesota, uses pipe-type air storage, which makes it possible to store energy in more places.
Carbon nanoparticles improve lithium-sulfur batteries
April 11, 2012 11:11 am | News | CommentsIn prototypes of the lithium-sulfur battery, lithium ions are exchanged between lithium- and sulfur-carbon electrodes. The sulfur is an excellent energy storage material due to its low weight. At the same time, sulfur is a poor conductor, so researchers have a devised a way to greatly improve conductivity using a porous network of carbon nanoparticles.
'Tunable' metal nanostructures for batteries, fuel cells
April 3, 2012 6:31 am | by Bill Steele, Cornell University | News | CommentsFor catalysts in fuel cells and electrodes in batteries, engineers would like to manufacture metal films that are porous, to make more surface area available for chemical reactions, and highly conductive, to carry off the electricity. The latter has been a frustrating challenge. But Cornell University chemists have now developed a way to make porous metal films with up to 1,000 times the electrical conductivity offered by previous methods.
Avoiding electrolyte failure in nanoscale lithium batteries
March 21, 2012 4:54 am | News | CommentsIt turns out you can be too thin—especially if you're a nanoscale battery. A team of researchers built a series of nanowire batteries to demonstrate that the thickness of the electrolyte layer can dramatically affect the performance of the battery, effectively setting a lower limit to the size of the tiny power sources.
Silicon-carbon electrodes snap, swell, don't pop
March 14, 2012 11:20 am | News | CommentsA study that examines a new type of silicon-carbon nanocomposite electrode reveals details of how they function and how repeated use could wear them down. The study also provides clues to why this material performs better than silicon alone.
A jump forward in understanding the nature of supercapacitors
March 6, 2012 4:56 am | News | CommentsA research group at Drexel University has produced the first quantitative picture of the ionic liquid structure in a promising type of supercapacitor that uses microporous carbon electrodes. Ion adsorption in these electrodes produces the excellent performance exhibited by the supercapacitors, and the research could guide the design of better storage devices.
Electron-detection breakthrough could unleash next-generation technologies
February 29, 2012 4:06 am | News | CommentsPhysics researchers at the University of Kansas have discovered a new method of detecting electric currents based on a process called second-harmonic generation, similar to a radar gun for electrons that can remotely detect their speed.
Toppling Raman shift in supercritical carbon dioxide
February 29, 2012 3:25 am | News | CommentsJust as a wine glass vibrates and sometimes breaks when a diva sings the right note, carbon dioxide vibrates when light or heat serenades it. When it does, carbon dioxide exhibits a vibrational puzzle known as Fermi resonance. Now, researchers studying geologic carbon storage have learned a bit more about the nature of carbon dioxide.
Mechanism behind capacitor's high-speed energy storage discovered
February 23, 2012 10:53 am | News | CommentsResearchers at North Carolina State University have discovered the means by which a polymer known as PVDF, polyvinylidene fluoride, enables capacitors to store and release large amounts of energy quickly. Their findings could lead to much more powerful and efficient electric cars.
Sandia researchers find energy storage solutions in MetILs
February 17, 2012 9:04 am | News | CommentsSandia National Laboratories researchers have developed a new family of liquid salt electrolytes, known as MetILs, that could lead to batteries able to cost-effectively store three times more energy than today's batteries. The research might lead to devices that can help economically and reliably incorporate large-scale intermittent renewable energy source into the nation's electric grid.
Metal catalyst drives hydrogen fuel reaction forwards and backwards
February 16, 2012 5:40 am | News | CommentsWhen it comes to driving hydrogen production, a new catalyst built at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory can do what was previously shown to happen only in nature: Store energy in hydrogen and release that energy on demand. This nickel-based complex drives the reaction, but is not consumed by it.
Liquid batteries could level the load
February 14, 2012 3:30 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsThe biggest drawback to sources of clean, renewable energy is their intermittency: The wind doesn't always blow, the sun doesn't always shine, and so the power they produce may not be available at all times. A major goal of energy research has been to find ways to help smooth out these erratic supplies. Now the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows a promising technology that could provide that long-sought way of leveling the load.
Nanostructured electrodes form basis for new sodium-ion batteries
February 13, 2012 9:02 am | News | CommentsHighly efficient 3V cathodes for rechargeable sodium-ion batteries have been developed by researchers at Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago. With a near-theoretical capacity of 250 mAh/g and power densities 1,200 W/kg, these new electrodes can be used at ambient temperature.
Researchers find way to examine batteries—from the inside
February 12, 2012 5:39 pm | News | CommentsUntil now, looking inside a battery to determine its health has been difficult without destroying the battery. An international team of researchers has now development a way to do this, based on magnetic resonance imaging technology.
New battery could lead to cheaper, more efficient solar energy
February 10, 2012 4:41 am | News | CommentsA joint research project between the University of Southampton and lithium battery technology company REAPsystems has found that a new type of battery has the potential to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of solar power. The study looked into the use of lithium batteries as an energy storage device in photovoltaic systems.
Research uncovers reasons for superior battery performance
February 8, 2012 3:17 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsSince its discovery 15 years ago, lithium iron phosphate has become one of the most promising materials for rechargeable batteries because of its stability, durability, safety, and ability to deliver a lot of power at once. It has been the focus of major research projects around the world. But despite this widespread interest, the reasons for lithium iron phosphate’s unusual charging and discharging characteristics have remained unclear. Until now.
Designing self-repairing batteries
January 11, 2012 8:07 am | News | CommentsImagine dropping your phone on the hard concrete sidewalk—but when you pick it up, you find its battery has already healed itself. A team of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Argonne National Laboratory are exploring ways to design batteries that heal themselves when damaged.
World's largest Li-Ion battery factory launched in Russia
December 15, 2011 4:11 am | News | CommentsLiotech, a joint venture between RUSNANO and Chinese holding company Thunder Sky, has launched the world's largest high-capacity lithium-ion battery factory near Novosibirsk. Covering more than 40,000-m 2 , it has a design capacity of more than 1 GWh, or approximately one million batteries per year.
Carbon capture? Go for the source
December 6, 2011 3:34 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsSince most of the world's governments have not yet enacted regulations to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, some experts have advocated the development of technologies to remove carbon dioxide directly from the air. But a new Massachusetts Institute of Technology study shows that, at least for the foreseeable future, such proposals are not realistic because their costs would vastly exceed those of blocking emissions right at the source, such as at the powerplants that burn fossil fuels.
Efficiency metrics for energy storage devices need standardization
November 30, 2011 8:58 am | News | CommentsSolving the mystery of prematurely dead cell phone and laptop batteries may prove to be a vital step toward creating a sustainable energy grid, according to Drexel researcher Yury Gogotsi. In a newly published piece, Gogotsi calls for a new, standardized gauge of performance measurement for energy storage devices that are as small as those used in cell phones to as large as those used in the national energy grid.
